Lived in Moments

August 5, 1991

By E. B. de Vito

That day, the pet shop window was shared by kittens and rabbits. And in one corner, a tiny moon-white rabbit propped itself against the wall as it tried to sit on its haunches and wash its face with its paws - an act no doubt copied from its windowmates.

An actress once said that if a play had a few memorable moments, the audience went home content.

Perhaps all our days are lived in moments, moments all the way:

for Archimedes, when he cried "Eureka" for Petrarch, when he first set eyes on Laura; for an artist looking upward at a tenement window where a smiling child scattered crumbs for the birds on the ledge outside, a moment that lives on in "Lily and the Sparrows."

And for me, that day, a moment to remember: a pet shop window where a rabbit, no bigger than a coffee cup, attempting to sit up, tried valiantly to transcend itself.